BIO
It was during this period and a few years after that my interest in the technical side of
presenting music was developing. I loved being in the local recording studios, hanging out with
my friends who worked for the area radio and TV stations, and I owned a large sound system for
the group I was in. We were very popular, so it was important that we could gig in a club or
outside on a campus quad and keep the audio quality consistent.
In 1975 I moved to Boston. For five years I worked my way through college (B.S. Mass
Communications) doing FM radio production and mixing a steady stream of live music
broadcasts. I slid over to recording studios after that, getting engineering work, producing local
bands, doing studio installations and some tech support, playing bass and singing.
A professional turning point came when I got asked to digitally record musical instrument
samples for a new company called Kurzweil Music Systems. That two year effort forever
changed my thinking about microphone choice and placement, room acoustics, ambient noise
levels; everything about the recording process.
San Francisco was my next move in January 1987, joining the staff of The Music Annex Studios in
Menlo Park two years later. I was Senior Recording and Mastering Engineer for almost 14 years.
Late in 2003 I started working as a sound designer for Creativity, Inc. doing audio for the toy industry.
By the end of 2007, I had returned to Boston where I was a part-time Associate Professor at Berklee
College of Music. Fast forward to May 2010, my new home is the Forbes Center for the Performing Arts
at James Madison University. As always, I am freelancing, working with many new clients in and
around Virginia, Washington, D.C. and with my West Coast and New England clients via FTP.
As it has been for many years, I often co-produce, record, mix, and master entire projects for my
clients although it can be any of the four. I do many jazz and classical sessions from solo piano to
chamber orchestra to 100 voice chorus and beyond, in studio or on location. I thoroughly enjoy working
on musical theatre, radio broadcasts, blues, folk, sacred, spoken word, and rock projects as well.
These days, all the sessions I record are to Pro Tools HD, although I remain a devoted
fan of tracking to a Studer 24 track with Dolby SR and mixing to 1/2 inch tape. Whatever the
technological choice, it must serve the music, always.
It has been a gift and privilege for me to have worked with so many fine instrumentalists,
composers, vocalists, producers and arrangers over the last thirty-six years. I look forward to
working with you.
My first music lesson was in
fourth grade. I was nine, and from
that point on music became the
thread I used to hold things together.
All through grade school there were
many opportunities to study, sing, and
play music, all the while learning the
value and joy of joining together with
other artists to achieve a shared goal.